City Under the Sea

Storyline

In the future humans may need to adapt to a life underwater. There will be many dangers. Scolding volcanic fluids and crushing pressures can kill the unwary. In some ways it's easier to live in space than underwater. We know more about the moon than the dark depths of our own planet.

The oceans are the Earth's final frontier. But we may be forced to take the plunge. And ever improving technology is making it possible. We may soon live as science-fiction writers have long imagined - under the sea.

With a host of problems threatening the Earth's surface, is underwater living a viable alternative? Meet the scientists who believe that permanently submerged colonies are not just possible, but imminent.

This is hypothetical challenge of housing 100 families below the ocean's surface and race to overcome obstacles such as bone-crushing pressures, ravaging storms, and scalding volcanic fluids to create self-sufficient underwater communities.

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Comments and User Reviews

dmxi

looks like bill gates has taken a plunge.

http://1iotofoto.wix.com/otofoto oQ

This description of this doc reminds me of a friend from wayback, Hugo Verlomme who wrote the books Mermere and the follow up Sables (both in French)....2 must read if you speak the language!

I'll watch the doc tonight. The day is going well!
1i

PaulGloor

Sign me up. I've got cramped quarters and Isolation licked from sharing a house with 5 other people and having worked night shifts for 2 years.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1017423801 Lance L Mumford

I would rather be scolded by volcanic fluid than scaulded.

GonChalabas

"Humans can't breathe water" 11:19 It's one of those docs..

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LK6B2HGMK4EHZ6YJ3I6WFKY77U DigiWongaDude

mon amie, you are full of surprises.

http://1iotofoto.wix.com/otofoto oQ

Why...do you know Hugo too?
1i

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LK6B2HGMK4EHZ6YJ3I6WFKY77U DigiWongaDude

No, just that you speak French. I don't, so don't know if google betrayed me lol.

There's a big flaw to this documentary. Why try build an isolated environment, cut off from the land? Makes no sense. Just extend them into the sea from land, maintaining a link with the land. Steady supply of materials, food and oxygen without all the hassle.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ZMK6YNWJACHQ5CRCJW5TNYFURI KsDevil

An experiment from the movie Hello Down There and a primative version of theTV series Seaquest packed into a somewhat technical National Geographic show. Very inviting but you know humans will spoil it.

Jack1952

Jules Verne "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" I read it in English, though. High school French just never took. A shame.

Jack1952

When I was twelve, a buddy and I found a square metal container. We cut a hole on one side and tried to glue a piece or glass over the hole and went deep sea diving in the pond. The glass leaked like a sieve but it was kinda neat. Pretended I was Captain Nemo.

joshua89

Good doc.
Inspiring.
I wish I could live under the ocean and have a little sub plane.
Maybe one day I will, who knows.

xxDarkSidexx

great! lets live under the sea and pollute it even more then what it is, kill the beautiful sea creatures that we already do on a massive scale to feed our over populated world, infact lets put an underwater mcdonals! i mean we already heavly pollute the air and the land, lets really think about completly f*cking the sea up! yay!....

PaulGloor

That was partly covered in the doc. Too shallow and you are subject to storms and possible damage, not good.

PaulGloor

I think if they were to do this sort of thing they would really quickly recognize the benefits of living in harmony with the environment. The isolated environment would suffer negative effects very quickly and the residents of the habitat would be able to witness changes to the surrounding ecosystem with all the glass.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LK6B2HGMK4EHZ6YJ3I6WFKY77U DigiWongaDude

Yeah I see, but they did pretty well with the Channel Tunnel (under the sea floor), could do something similar maybe? A kind of tunnel that pops up into these structures on the sea floor. The advantages being links to the land and even an access method for normal machinery to extend it in to an underground network, acting like a permanent ambilical cord. Could take it as deep as desired eventually. To my mind it seems much more logical than isolation tanks and much, much safer (as in emergency exits).

Carl Hendershot

Nothing lasts forever.

Carl Hendershot

Wonderfully amazing and well within human reach.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LK6B2HGMK4EHZ6YJ3I6WFKY77U DigiWongaDude

If we don't stop our exponential population growth VERY SOON, we'll not have much choice but to begin this kind of thing (70% of the planet's surface.) But we could also use the land better (how about underground 'skyscrapers'? 8-O), and leave the oceans alone. Perhaps if we did though, we would better understand our human effects (as PaulGloor is saying). A lot of it is about our curious fascination of can we do it, and if so, what would it be like?

Jack, i'm good, just a dry sense of humour, your most likely american, i have trouble americans getting a dry humor, i'm just sitting back watching the world fall apart and get destroyed :) now, digging deeper into the earth might not be to bad an idea and yes, working on the land a little better,

lets pollute the underground with an underground mcdonals! no i'm just kidding.

As we are on water, can you belive how lazy me, we, some of us are all getting, buying ice cubes... lol

Paul Gloor

Reasonable assessment, I see where you're getting at now.
If they were to build more of the habitat into the rock bed below the sea floor structure, like an inverted skyscraper and connect it to these 'chunnels' they would get more bang for their buck. But I don't know how the 1 atmosphere pressure thing would work then and they would have to be absolutely sure it was built on a geologically stable area and make sure of fail safes in case one popped, otherwise the whole network would flood..

Is the entire length of the chunnel at 1 atmosphere ?

http://1iotofoto.wix.com/otofoto oQ

Done already, Montreal has a vast system underneath it's ground floor, all of it connected to shopping malls with many McDonalds and other competitors, appartment building, banks, library, museums, office space, bus-train-metro stations. But you can't fly away without sticking your nose out as there are no connection between the ariport and the system.

One could live in Montreal and never set foot in the snow for months, kinda positive in such cold place, wouldn't say? lol (i am being sarcastic)
1i

Jack1952

No... I'm Canadian. The land of snow and ice and striking hockey players. It's in our own best interest to maintain an optimistic view of life and the world. Your post was so bleak and coupled with your "DarkSide" persona, I felt I had to poke you enough that you might just lighten up a little. Tis the season, you know.

Hate Mcdonald's but my grandkids love it. I take them a couple of times a year, for a treat, and as rotten as the food is, there is nothing like watching the happiness in their faces as they gobble down a Happy meal and run off to playland. I figure as long as it doesn't become an everyday occurrence, not a real big deal. Besides, there will always be those places that the more discerning of us will look down on.

http://twitter.com/JoseStucco jose stucco

For every 25 residents we need a tunnel between the living quarters and working quarters? We may colonize under the sea, but it won't look anything like this. I am still waiting for my flying car they promised in those movies in the 50s.

It is sad that all architecture schools care about these days is techno-fantasy and art stunts. I guess an honestly well thought out design isn't sexy enough for tv ratings. (minimizing exterior walls minimizes cost, complexity, materials, connections that need to be air tight. I guess with Obama running the project they will just print as much money as they need to construct this money pit of a design)

Do you want to trust your life to somebody with so little common sense they think 100 patrons will support a restaurant? Ever been to one of those tiny little towns of a couple hundred people where the nearest gas station is 20 miles away?

http://www.facebook.com/lemon.popsickle Lemon Popsickle

don,t be daft, he's coward

nada nada

0:14 "Humans are re-adapting to life underwater ..." Totally misleading statement. The video is about recreating the same conditions we have on earth underwater, therefore humans don't need any biological adaptation to live there.

BecomingTuba

we spend a lot of energy and billions of dollars trying to understand the solar/planetary system (everything above the sky), but how come we don't put that much effort in studying everything below the surface of the earth and ocean, including below the surface of other planets which we have discovered? When we're curious about how something works, like a portable radio or an apple, our first impulse is to dig its surface and break it into pieces to see how it works and how its made, we're not so much vested on the external "system" which makes it work, like electricity, oxygen, or water; so why's there no fervor for studying the universe in that way? Why does NASA get more gov't funding than institutions that focus solely on Earth Science and Oceanography?

Marino

What exactly are 'scolding' volcanic fluids? Don't you mean 'scalding?' Where is your proofreader?